Poverty and Low Education Don't Cause Terrorism

"Members of Hezbollah's militant wing who were killed in action
in the 1980s and early 1990s were at least as likely to come from
economically advantaged families and have a relatively high level of education
as they were to come from impoverished families without educational
opportunities."

In the minds of many, poverty and violence often go together. After the
events of September 11, several prominent observers, ranging from George
W. Bush to George McGovern, drew a connection. The head of the World
Bank even proclaimed that terrorism will not end until poverty is eliminated.
Perhaps surprisingly, then, a review by NBER Research Associate Alan
Krueger and co-author Jitka Maleckova provides little reason for optimism
that a reduction in poverty or an increase in educational attainment, by
themselves, would meaningfully reduce international terrorism.

"Any connection between poverty, education, and terrorism is indirect,
complicated, and probably quite weak," the authors note in Education,
Poverty, Political Violence, and Terrorism: Is There a Causal
Connection? (NBER Working Paper No. 9074). "Instead of viewing terrorism
as a direct response to low market opportunities or ignorance, we suggest it
is more accurately viewed as a response to political conditions and long-standing feelings (either perceived or real) of indignity and frustration that
have little to do with economics."

The authors are concerned that drawing a connection between poverty
and terrorism - if it is not justified - is potentially quite dangerous because the
international community may lose interest in providing support to developing
nations when the imminent threat of terrorism recedes. That support, they
note, waned in the aftermath of the Cold War. Connecting foreign aid with
terrorism also risks the possibility of humiliating many in less developed
countries, who are implicitly told they only receive foreign aid to prevent them
from committing acts of terror. Further, premising aid on the threat of
terrorism could create perverse incentives for some groups to engage in
terrorism to increase their prospect of receiving aid. "Alleviating poverty is
reason enough to pressure economically advanced countries to provide more
aid than they are currently giving," Krueger and Maleckova write.

Defining terrorism is difficult;there are more than 100 diplomatic or
scholarly definitions, the authors note. One problem is that there are valid
disputes as to which party is a legitimate government. Since 1983, the U.S.
State Department has defined terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated
violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or
clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." In their study,
Krueger and Maleckova cast a broad net.

To reach their conclusions, they look first at hate crimes, which are
closely related to terrorism. These include the lynchings of African Americans
and the violence against Turks in Germany. About 10 percent of the 3,100
counties in the United States are currently home to a hate group, such as the
Klu Klux Klan, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. A study by
Phillip Jefferson and Frederic Pryor found that the likelihood that a hate group
was located in a county was unrelated to the unemployment rate in the
county, and positively related to the education level in the county. Similarly,
Krueger and Jrn-Steffan Pischke found that in Germany neither average
education nor the average wage in the country's 543 counties was related to
the amount of violence against foreigners.

Turning to terrorism, the authors' analysis of the results of a public
opinion poll conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in December 2001
indicates that support for violent attacks against Israeli targets does not
decrease among those with higher education and higher living standards. A
majority of the Palestinian population said that the attacks against Israeli
civilians helped achieve Palestinian rights in a way that negotiations could not
have. A 92 percent majority also did not consider the suicide bomb attack that
killed 21 Israeli youths at the Dolphinarium night club in Tel Aviv last summer
to be terrorism.

From analyzing earlier opinion polls and economic trends in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, Krueger and Maleckova conclude, "There is little
evidence here to suggest that a deteriorating economy or falling expectation
for the economy precipitated the latest intifada." They observe, "Protest,
violence, and even terrorism can follow either a rising or declining economic
tide."

The core of the study entails a comparison of the characteristics of
members of Hezbollah (or Party of God), which the U.S. State Department has
designated a terrorist organization, with those of the general population of
Lebanon. Their analysis indicates that members of Hezbollah's militant wing
who were killed in action in the 1980s and early 1990s were at least as likely
to come from economically advantaged families and have a relatively high
level of education as they were to come from impoverished families without
educational opportunities.

Likewise, looking at the Israeli Jewish underground, which conducted
numerous violent attacks against Palestinians in the late 1970s and early
1980s, killing 23 Palestinians and maiming many others, the study finds that
these Israeli extremists were "overwhelmingly well educated and in high
paying occupations."

Economists have found a link between low incomes and property
crimes. But in most cases terrorism is less like property crime and more like a
violent form of political engagement, the authors suggest. "More educated
people from privileged backgrounds are more likely to participate in politics,
probably in part because political involvement requires some minimum level of
interest, expertise, commitment to issues and effort, all of which are more
likely if people are educated and wealthy enough to concern themselves with
more than mere economic subsistence," they write. And terrorist
organizations may prefer to use highly educated individuals as operatives
because they are better suited to carry out acts of international terrorism than
are impoverished illiterates since the terrorists must fit into a foreign
environment to be successful.

-- David R. Francis

The Digest is not copyrighted and may be reproduced freely with appropriate attribution of source.